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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Road Trip: First full day in Eugene

From Cory’s Travel Journal (revised)

6/12/13

Retro logging out days in Eugene. On our first full day, we got up and got
ready for the big bike ride. The night
before, we had been up watching a movie, and I had fallen asleep. It’s difficult to stay awake even for a great
movie with the pace we have been keeping…

We did the Beer and Bikes (Brews and Bikes? Beercycle ride?) we were generously loaned bikes and helmets
by our family. We rode all over Eugene
and Springfield visiting breweries and getting flights of samples to try at
each. IT was great to see the brewing
culture in Eugene so strong.

After our 5th (or 6th?) brewery, we
went home to get the car to go downtown for the night. We visited the Rogue pub (popular micro brand
even in the Midwest) for another flight of samples. Turned out it was Bingo night at the
pub. Looking around the bar and seeing
only two or three other people, we figured our chances of winning were in our
favor.

Success! Sara and her
sister both won Rogue margarita glasses… so yeah… After our Bingo success, we visited ONE MORE
pub. This place sold drinks with
fluctuating prices depending on the demand that night. There was a big stock ticker board behind the
bar showing each beer, its current price, and the recent price trend,
represented by an up arrow or down arrow.
What a great concept! I had a
glass of ginger mead which I thought was lovely. Just a little bit better than the mead I made
with some crystallized grocery store honey and white table sugar.

Post-pubs, we went to the coolest hangout I’ve been to in a long time, the Shoryuken League. For $5, it was all the video games you could play
including arcade, console, and PC games.
We all started on The Simpsons
4-player beat-‘em-up I remember from my boyhood skating rink. With teamwork (and unlimited continues…) we
beat the game! I could never get to the
second boss in that game, because I never had more than a few quarters to rub
together. What fun! The ladies played Donkey Kong Country on the SNES.
After their game, I played Castlevania on the NES. I made it to Dracula, but wasn’t able to beat
him (as usual.) After Castlevania, we
all played Mario Kart 64 until well
after midnight.

It was such a great day.
Riding the bikes (18+miles?) felt really good after all the car
travel. Going to and all-you-can-play
arcade was even better. Doing it all
with family we don’t often see made it just that much sweeter.